The Second Amendment to the Constitution, a protection of the ownership of firearms, has become the source of heated controversy in recent years. Learn about the Founders' views on this important freedom and their solutions for averting the plague of violence that has disrupted communications.

On its initial publication in 1998, John R. Lott’s More Guns, Less Crime drew both lavish praise and heated criticism. More than a decade later, it continues to play a key role in ongoing arguments over gun-control laws: despite all the attacks by gun-control advocates, no one has ever been able to refute Lott’s simple, startling conclusion that more guns mean less crime. Relying on the most rigorously comprehensive data analysis ever conducted on crime statistics and right-to-carry laws, the book directly challenges common perceptions about the relationship of guns, crime, and violence. For this third edition, Lott draws on an additional ten years of data—including provocative analysis of the effects of gun bans in Chicago and Washington, D.C—that brings the book fully up to date and further bolsters its central contention.

This book is a draft of chapter one of Mr. Beard's dissertation, The Impact of Constitutional Interpretation on Individual Freedom. He was kicked out of the J.S.D. program by a Dean, who graduated from Harvard Law, because this project was, to put it politely, "politically incorrect;" justification was that it would not contribute anything new or important to the existing scholarship. Once the Dean was no longer at the law school, Mr. Beard's supervisor and co-faculty director of the program invited him back to finish this project. The purpose of this dissertation is to explain how power-elites and branches of government have reinterpreted the U.S. Constitution to increase government power and authority at the expense of individual freedom. There are only two ways to interpret the U.S. Constitution: (1) Under the freedom doctrine; or, (2) as a master-slave relationship, which is what has been going on for the past 100 years. If Americans are not slaves, then the U.S. Government is Illegitimate.

What underlies this development? In this concise and highly engaging work, Federal Appeals Court Judge and noted author (From Brown to Bakke) J. Harvie Wilkinson argues that America's most brilliant legal minds have launched a set of cosmic constitutional theories that, for all their value, are undermining self-governance.

Stephen P. Halbrook's The Founders' Second Amendment is the first book-length account of the origins of the Second Amendment, based on the Founders' own statements as found in newspapers, correspondence, debates, and resolutions. Mr. Halbrook investigates the period from 1768 to 1826, from the last years of British rule and the American Revolution through to the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and the passing of the Founders' generation. His book offers the most comprehensive analysis of the arguments behind the drafting and adoption of the Second Amendment, and the intentions of the men who created it.

#1 bestselling author and popular radio and television host Glenn Beck shines a spotlight on today’s culture of violence and provides practical, timely, and fact-based answers to the most commonly heard gun-control arguments. When our founding fathers secured the Constitutional “right of the people to keep and bear arms,” they also added the admonition that this right SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. It is the only time this phrase appears in the Bill of Rights. So why aren’t more people listening? History has proven that guns are essential to self-defense and liberty—but tragedy is a powerful force and has led many to believe that guns are the enemy, that the Second Amendment is outdated, and that more restrictions or outright bans on firearms will somehow solve everything. They are wrong. In CONTROL, Glenn Beck presents a passionate, fact-based case for guns that reveals why gun control isn’t really about controlling guns at all; it’s about controlling us. In doing so, he takes on and debunks the common myths and outright lies that are often used to vilify guns and demean their owners: The Second Amendment is ABOUT MUSKETS . . . GUN CONTROL WORKS in other countries . . . 40 percent of all guns are sold without BACKGROUND CHECKS . . . More GUNS MEAN more MURDER . . . Mass shootings are becoming more common . . . These awful MASSACRES ARE UNIQUE TO AMERICA . . . No CIVILIAN needs a “weapon of war” like the AR-15 . . . ARMED GUARDS in schools do nothing, just look at Columbine . . . Stop FEARMONGERING, no one is talking about TAKING YOUR GUNS AWAY. Backed by hundreds of sources, this handbook gives everyone who cares about the Second Amendment the indisputable facts they need to reclaim the debate, defeat the fear, and take back their natural rights.

A leading constitutional historian argues that the Founding Fathers viewed the right to bear arms as neither an individual nor a collective right, but rather an obligation a citizen owed to the government to arm themselves and participate in a well-regulated militia.

On September 11, 2001, America was defiled by terror -- our people mass murdered by fanatics willing to forfeit their own lives to kill as many innocent civilians as they could. The horrific evil inflicted on America that day was also a frontal assault on the very values that have made this nation a power-house: liberty, democracy, justice, and decency. To the nation's gun ban lobby, however, the mindless tragedy was seen as an opportunity to seize on terrorism as an excuse to launch a new wave of harsh gun laws against peaceable citizens. But their antidefense dogma fell on deaf ears. Citizens quickly decided to assume responsibility for their own protection. Homeland security meant exercising Second Amendment rights; it meant common-sense gun ownership. It meant Americans fighting back -- from airline pilots to average citizens. Guns, Freedom, and Terrorism exposes the myths of those who demand we give up the liberties our forefathers fought valiantly to protect. It's about the true meaning of an armed citizenry and the nation's bedrock belief in preserving freedom. This fact-filled book provides forceful and convincing arguments on all the current issues facing firearms ownership in America, including: arming airline pilots, "animal rights" extremists, extortion of firearms manufacturers, gun show prohibition, international disarmament, self-defense and right-to-carry laws, media bias, and the historical and legal foundations affirming an individual's right to keep and bear arms. Book jacket.

Few constitutional disputes maintain as powerful a grip on the public mind as the battle over the Second Amendment. The National Rifle Association and gun-control groups struggle unceasingly over a piece of the political landscape that no candidate for the presidency--and few for Congress--can afford to ignore. But who's right? Will it ever be possible to settle the argument? In Out of Range, one of the nation's leading legal scholars takes a calm, objective look at this bitter debate. Mark V. Tushnet brings to this book a deep expertise in the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the role of the law in American life. He breaks down the different positions on the Second Amendment, showing that it is a mistake to stereotype them. Tushnet's exploration is honest and nuanced; he finds the constitutional arguments finely balanced, which is one reason the debate has raged for so long. Along the way, he examines various experiments in public policy, from both sides, and finds little clear evidence for the practical effectiveness of any approach to gun safety and prosecution. Of course, he notes, most advocates of the right to keep and bear arms agree that it should be subject to reasonable regulation. Ultimately, Tushnet argues, our view of the Second Amendment reflects our sense of ourselves as a people. The answer to the debate will not be found in any holy writ, but in our values and our vision of the nation. This compact, incisive examination offers an honest and thoughtful guide to both sides of the argument, pointing the way to solutions that could calm, if not settle, this bitter dispute.

Designed for high school students and motivated lay readers, this book will be an introduction to the rights held by American citizens under the U.S. Constitution as explored through a series of historical case studies. Each chapter will use dramatic narrative to illustrate a right in action. Most examples, but not all, will use U.S. Supreme Court cases to focus on a time when the right in question received its modern interpretation. The aim, however, will be to use each chapter to discuss how the right applies today and how courts and other interpreters seek to balance this right with important societal concerns, such as the need for order and public safety. The book will begin with a 20-page chapter on how we arrived at our modern concept of rights. The major interpretive thread will be the continual struggle to define limits on the power of the state. The chapter will introduce several key themes: our understanding of rights has emerged from history (experience); our definition and interpretation of rights is always evolving; concepts of rights are always under contention; and various actors-legislatures, executives, and courts-compete to be the final interpreter of our rights. American constitutional rights generally fall into one of three groups-rights of democracy, that is, rights required for American democracy to work effectively; rights of the accused, or due process rights that assure a fair trial for individuals accused of crimes; and other rights of persons, including the right to privacy. A fourth category of rights are not constitutional per se, but often we conceive of them as such even though often they are statutory rights, such as the right to education... A concluding chapter will discuss other rights that may evolve as a result of current political and social movements, such as the right to health care. Along with Our Constitution and Pivotal Supreme Court Cases (working title), this book has the potential to become a core text for the annual observance of Constitution Day on September 17, which is mandated by Congress for all educational institutions receiving federal funds.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once remarked that the theory of an evolving, "living" Constitution effectively "rendered the Constitution useless." He wanted a "dead Constitution," he joked, arguing it must be interpreted as the framers originally understood it. In The Living Constitution, leading constitutional scholar David Strauss forcefully argues against the claims of Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, and other "originalists," explaining in clear, jargon-free English how the Constitution can sensibly evolve, without falling into the anything-goes flexibility caricatured by opponents. The living Constitution is not an out-of-touch liberal theory, Strauss further shows, but a mainstream tradition of American jurisprudence--a common-law approach to the Constitution, rooted in the written document but also based on precedent. Each generation has contributed precedents that guide and confine judicial rulings, yet allow us to meet the demands of today, not force us to follow the commands of the long-dead Founders. Strauss explores how judicial decisions adapted the Constitution's text (and contradicted original intent) to produce some of our most profound accomplishments: the end of racial segregation, the expansion of women's rights, and the freedom of speech. By contrast, originalism suffers from fatal flaws: the impossibility of truly divining original intent, the difficulty of adapting eighteenth-century understandings to the modern world, and the pointlessness of chaining ourselves to decisions made centuries ago. David Strauss is one of our leading authorities on Constitutional law--one with practical knowledge as well, having served as Assistant Solicitor General of the United States and argued eighteen cases before the United States Supreme Court. Now he offers a profound new understanding of how the Constitution can remain vital to life in the twenty-first century.

Joyce Malcolm illuminates the historical facts underlying the current passionate debate in America about gun-related violence, the Brady Bill, and the National Rifle Association, revealing the original meaning and intentions behind the individual right to "bear arms."

Chief Justice John Marshall argued that a constitution "requires that only its great outlines should be marked [and] its important objects designated." Ours is "intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs." In recent years, Marshall's great truths have been challenged by proponents of originalism and strict construction. Such legal thinkers as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argue that the Constitution must be construed and applied as it was when the Framers wrote it. In Keeping Faith with the Constitution, three legal authorities make the case for Marshall's vision. They describe their approach as "constitutional fidelity"--not to how the Framers would have applied the Constitution, but to the text and principles of the Constitution itself. The original understanding of the text is one source of interpretation, but not the only one; to preserve the meaning and authority of the document, to keep it vital, applications of the Constitution must be shaped by precedent, historical experience, practical consequence, and societal change. The authors range across the history of constitutional interpretation to show how this approach has been the source of our greatest advances, from Brown v. Board of Education to the New Deal, from the Miranda decision to the expansion of women's rights. They delve into the complexities of voting rights, the malapportionment of legislative districts, speech freedoms, civil liberties and the War on Terror, and the evolution of checks and balances. The Constitution's framers could never have imagined DNA, global warming, or even women's equality. Yet these and many more realities shape our lives and outlook. Our Constitution will remain vital into our changing future, the authors write, if judges remain true to this rich tradition of adaptation and fidelity.

The Federal Farmer's letters were written in opposition to the Constitution in the form in which it had come from the Federal Convention of 1787. Their immediate objective was to secure amendments to the Constitution before it was ratified by state convention. But the letters are valuable also for the basic political philosophy that they represent, specifically, the political philosophy of the revolution and the Bill of Rights. This philosophy stresses principles of federalism and republicanism and exemplifies the liberal idealism that took root in America during the Revolutionary War era. As first published, the letters comprised two separate pamphlets, one appearing in the fall of 1787 and consisting of five letters, the other appearing in the spring of 1788 and consisting of thirteen letters. The letters have seldom been reprinted, and until now they have never been issued together in a single edition. One of the merits of the present volume is that it includes all the letters exactly as they appeared in the original printed texts. A synoptic table of contents for the entire series has been supplied by the editor, in addition to an editor's introduction, which includes a critical analysis of the Federal Farmer's main arguments and also deals with the authorship of the letters. Richard Henry Lee of Virginia was early identified as the author of the letters, and in the course of the nineteenth century this attribution came to be generally accepted. However, Lee gave no hint in his known writings that he had written the letters, and in recent years the attribution of authorship to him has been questioned by competent scholars. The editor makes clear that he considers the evidence supporting the attribution to Lee to be strong, but he concludes, on the basis of his own investigation, that the question of authorship should not at this point be considered to have been settled. He makes no assumption that the matter will eventually be settled but suggests that a thoroughgoing linguistic and comparative analysis of Lee's known writings and the Federal Farmer's letters should be helpful in considering the question further. The letters have long been considered to be among the most significant of the political literature published in America during the great debate over the ratification of the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton refers to the Federal Farmer in the sixty-eight essay of The Federalist as "the most plausible" of the opponents of the Constitution to have appeared in print. Recent scholars probing into the literature of these so-called antifederalists have indicated that they have been quite impressed by the general content and comparatively moderate tone of the Federal Farmer's letters, and also by the seemingly substantial influence that the letters had in articulating arguments that appeared sooner or later in other writings against ratifying the Constitution in it original form.

God’s kingdom isn’t just about theology and church. It isn’t just a quaint religious idea or an obscure theological concept. It is about a whole new way of seeing the world and your place in it. Tony Evans' legacy work, The Kingdom Agenda offers a fresh and powerful vision that will help you think differently about your life, your relationships, and your walk with God. When you start with a Kingdom agenda, living in relationship with the true King, and embracing your place in His Kingdom, nothing will ever be the same. In these pages we’ll explore how, under God, this kingdom vision: Helps you find greater purpose for your life. Guides your family toward Him. Deepens your understanding of God’s use of the church. Changes the way you think about politics, culture, and philosophy. Join Dr. Tony Evans, one of the greatest Bible teachers of our time, as he unfolds this biblical and practical approach to life—an approach that has the power to change people, families, neighborhoods, churches, and even nations. Discover the power of the Kingdom agenda. For more information on this title or others in The Kingdom Agenda Series, go to www.TheKingdomAgendaBook.com.